lory_enterenchanted's Reviews (582)

"How to explain to him that her mother is a womb and a grave; a cage and a pair of wings; a feeding tube and a noose."

A beautiful novel about love and death, about buried trauma and hidden legacies, about accepting responsibility one's heritage while becoming oneself, creating a new life. Darwin and Yejide's journey to come together seems to reveal the magic that is behind the curtains of everyday life, if only we had the eyes to see it.

More quotes:

"You know what I remember from standing on the junction, running away, no idea where to go? The feeling that nobody down there knew where to go either. That they was all just as lost. Most people out there, people down the hill, people in the city, all of them fraid dying. Fraid it every day. Is like a black curtain that block out everything they think they know. They don't know that death is a blessing, a balancing. That it have women living on this hill who whole life is about making sure that death don't have to be a thing to fear, that somebody here to make sure that is nothing more than a good, long sleep. To be able to do that, to be part of that, is a blessing too." 

"The parrots wait for the dead and watch over the carcasses and consume the flesh. They not concerned with no God and you shouldn't be neither. We come from Death, and Death older than all the gods no matter what they name. Death was done old when man start to look up in the sky to make God. We do her work."

I'm reading through the Earthsea books in their new Folio Society editions. This one is as beautiful and thoughtful and rich as the others. When it first came out, I was a bit dismayed at the change in direction for Tenar--I wanted more magic. Now, a mother myself, I understand her journey better and honor her wisdom. The final chapter is harrowing and brilliant.

Read full review on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle

https://enterenchanted.com/voyage-au-centre-de-la-terre-parisinjuly23/

Claire of Word by Word recommended this - I'd had it on my radar earlier but forgot about it. I was so glad to finally read it, just after finishing The Count of Monte Cristo. It was fascinating to learn about some of the real-life story behind Dumas's Count, a mysterious and almost otherworldly figure, which makes sense as his father was this kind of figure for him - having died when he was 4 years old.

The backstory adds to the adventure an important and under-represented angle on the French Revolution and its aftermath. This is the struggle to abolish slavery, which briefly happened in the wave of Revolutionary ideals, and enabled the rise of a half-black general. Then, in a truly novelistic turn of events, after accompanying Napoleon on an ill-fated voyage to Egypt, he ended up shipwrecked imprisoned for two years, while Napoleon enacted his coup and rolled back rights for black people in France. He came back, broken in health but still eager to fight for freedom, to find this new world had no place for him.

The story is as much about an era and a world in transition as about an extraordinary man. Highly worth reading, and learning from. I was struck by the parallel to recent American history, as a resurgent racist impulse tries to roll back achievements of the past. Liberty, equality, and fraternity still have a hard struggle to overcome our fears and prejudices, and we are still much too prone to subject ourselves to an Emperor who promises to 'make everything great' while really just interested in his own greatness.

It took me months, but I finally made it through! What can I say about this classic melodrama!? The earlier part in the prison was great - later on I got a bit tired of the convolutions of the Count's revenge plot. I don't believe in a vengeful God, so that aspect of the story was uncomfortable, and overall the moral message got a bit muddled. I wish Dantes could have gotten back together with Mercedes in the end, and Haydee found another lover (it's weird for her to fall in love with her foster father/master). And I wish we could have heard more of Eugenie! A long, intricately plotted and sometimes confusing, but ultimately not very complex story. 

Read in preparation for Witch Week 2023, theme CRYPTOZOO. Excitement, humor, friendship and a hint of romance, beauty and danger, and a moving, emotional finale make for a richly satisfying fantasy. I'd only complain that the protagonist reads older than 15, and the book may be a bit mature in theme and image for the middle graders who may gravitate to it. Otherwise, I loved it.

I am taking a break from this long travelogue of Twain's journeys in Europe and the holy land. to be continued at some point, I hope.

Started this for the Around the World challenge, and it sounded so good, but I just could not get into it. May try again later.

Powerful, informative, moving, eloquent -- this checked all the boxes for me in terms of trauma memoir. It's not the usual narrative, but a set of essays exploring the author's pain and her quest for healing from a number of different angles, with overlapping and complementary content. She has done a huge amount of research, both in terms of reflecting on her own experiences and gathering the work of others, which can be useful to many readers, even if they don't have quite the massive obstacles that she has. I know it will inform my own ongoing investigation of how to heal generational and inherited trauma in myself. An important book in the growing field of traumatology.

Although I appreciated how much I learned about the plight of Mexican-american immigrants and their families from this book, there was something about it that felt unfinished or not satisfying. The author, driven as she was to succeed and give her loved ones a better life, seemed unable to really reflect on what she was doing to herself and to them. Perhaps it's a privileged stance to say this, but rather than being inspired by or admiring her achievements, I could only feel sad that she ended up struggling in an Ivy League college full of spoiled rich kids, then doing a job she hated, and caring for her brother so he could follow in the same track. I am concerned for her mental health, and there seem to be many issues she has not worked through. I am sorry for how much she, and many others, have to bear, but something seemed missing from this account, some level of insight or maturity.